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Like most people involved with basketball, Brad Daugherty has been watching Mike Krzyzewski close in on his 1,000th victory, which could come Sunday against St. John's at Madison Square Garden.

And like most people Daugherty, the former NBA standout who played at Owen High and North Carolina, can appreciate everything Krzyzewski has accomplished in his 35 years at Duke, winning 11 NCAA regional titles and four national championships.

About the only thing he doesn't care for is how some people believe the Duke coach has a superior record against everyone he's coached against in the ACC.

"He's 14-24 against Coach Smith and I want to put that out there and make everyone realize that," Daugherty said with a chuckle about Dean Smith, his former coach. "Don't let that get lost in the shuffle."

Since Smith retired in 1997, Coach K is 26-14 against the Tar Heels including 13-10 versus Roy Williams, the WNC native who left Kansas for North Carolina in 2003.

As for Daugherty, he was 6-3 in the games he played against Duke in the mid 1980s.

Smith won 879 games, the most among NCAA Division I coaches before Bob Knight passed him in 2007. Coach K succeeded Knight as the winningest coach four years later and has an overall record of 999-308 for a winning percentage of 76.4 percent, numbers that Daugherty describes as unbelievable.

"Mike's been great for the ACC, great for the rivalry with North Carolina and everyone else who plays them," Daugherty said. "It's a rivalry game for everyone in that conference.

"He deserves a ton of credit. He's had a lot of great players but the mainstay has always been Mike. It's an incredible feat he's about to accomplish."

When Krzyzewski arrived at Duke in 1980, he tried recruiting Daugherty.

"I saw him not too long ago and he was teasing me about that," said Daugherty, who's working this winter as a basketball analyst for ESPN.

"He said he tried talking to me but I had no interest in them. Before he got there Duke had really struggled and in Western North Carolina, North Carolina State and North Carolina were the teams we saw the most on TV.

"At the time Coach Smith was a legendary figure and I thought it would be a dream come true to play for someone like Coach Smith, who I still think is the best man ever to coach basketball."

Daugherty says coaches like Knight, Krzyzewski and Smith are similar in how they teach the game and for the impact they have on players. Another reason Daugherty respects Coach K is because of the kindness he has shown Smith, who is in declining health with what his family describes as a neurocognitive disorder.

"I really appreciate the fact that he's been so close to Coach Smith and doing it quietly," Daugherty said.

"I think that says more about him than anything."

Bob Berghaus is a Citizen-Times sportswriter. Follow him on Twitter @Bob_Berghaus